A Story That May Have Relevance For Others, Or Then Again, Maybe Not:

A story that may have relevance for others, or then again, maybe not:

When I was in college, about ten or so years ago, I was a history major. I wanted to learn to dance, so I joined a swing dance club on campus. To my surprise, this club had about twice as many men as women (in high school, the last time I’d tried dancing, the ratio had gone the other way–lots of girls, and boys only that you could drag by their ears).

But apparently, there had been some kind of word spread specifically to the STEM guys that dance was a way that they could meet girls.

So anyway. I joined the swing dance club, and met a few guys. And at one point, when socializing with the guys outside of dance class, one of them asked me what my research was on. (I had already established that I was an honors history student doing a thesis, just as he had established that he was an honors… I’m not sure if he was CS or Math, but it was one of those.)

So I gave him the thumbnail sketch of my research. Now, to be clear, an honors senior thesis, while nothing like what a graduate student would do, was still fairly in-depth. I had to translate primary sources from the original late-Classical Latin. (My professor said, basically, that while there were plenty of translations of my source material, that I’d only be able to comfortably trust them if I had at least made a stab at a translation of my own. And he was right.) And there was so much secondary material, often contradictory, that I had been carefully sorting through.

But I was able to sift it into a three-sentence summary of my senior thesis work, you know, as one does.

So I gave him that summary, and then asked–since he was also an undergraduate senior doing an honors thesis–what his research was on.

“Oh,” he said, “you wouldn’t understand it.”

Reader, I went home in a frothing rage. Because I had thought we were playing one game–a game of ‘let’s talk about what we’re passionate about!’– and he had been playing another game, which was, one-upsmanship. I had done my best to give a basically understandable brief of my research–and he had used that against me. As if my research, my painstaking translation, my digging through archives and ILLs of esoteric works, my reading of ten thousand articles in Speculum (yes, the pre-eminent medievalist journal in North America is called Speculum, I’m sorry, it’s hilarious/sad but also true), and then my effort to sum it up for him, was nothing. Because his research into some kind of algorithm or other was just too complex for my tiny brain to conceive of. Because I just couldn’t possibly understand his work.

Now, the important note here is that the person I went home to was my senior year roommate. She was a graduate student–normally undergrads and graduate students couldn’t be roommates, but we’d been friends for years, and the tenured faculty-in-residence used his powers for good and permitted us to be roommates that year. Anyway. My senior year roommate was basically… in retrospect I think possibly an avatar of Athena. She was six feet tall, blonde, attractive in a muscular athletic way, a rock climber and racquetball player, sweet but sharp, extremely socially awkward, exceptionally kind even when it cost her to be kind, and an incredibly brilliant computer science major who spent most of her time working on extremely complicated mathematical algorithms. (Yes, I was a little in love with her, why do you ask? But she was as straight as a length of rope, and is now happily married, and so am I, so it worked out.)

(Still, yes, she is my mental image of Athena, to this day.)

Anyway, I came home in a frothing rage to my roommate, the Athena avatar. And I said, “He made me feel like such an idiot, that I could sum up my research to him but his research was just too smart for stupid little me.”

And she shut her book, and smiled at me, with her dark eyes and her high cheekbones and her bright hair, and said, “If he can’t explain his research to you, then he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.”

Now I hesitated, because I’d be in college long enough to have sort of bought into the ridiculous idea that if you couldn’t dazzle them with your brilliance, you should baffle them with your bullshit. But she said, “Look, I’ve been doing work on computer science algorithms that have significantly complicated mathematical underpinnings. What do I do?”

And I said, “Genetic algorithms–that is, self-optimizing algorithms–for prioritization, specifically for scheduling.”

“Right,” she said. “You couldn’t code them because you’re not a computer scientist or a mathematician. But you can understand what I do. If someone can’t explain it like that, it isn’t a problem with you as a person. It’s a problem with them. They either don’t understand it as well as they think they do–or they want to make you feel inferior. And neither is a positive thing.”

So. There.

If you are looking into something and have a question, and someone treats you like an idiot for not understanding right away… here is what I have to say: maybe it isn’t you who is the idiot.

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auranxia

4 years ago

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funny weed bumble bees

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auranxia

5 years ago

Here’s the thing about the air nomads.

I introduced a friend to ATLA a few nights ago, and they had only known two things about the entire show: the cabbage meme, and that Aang apparently wants to ride every large and dangerous animal he can possibly find. We got through the first five or so episodes, and my friend noted that Aang is exactly what a 12-year-old would be like if given godlike powers, and that this is literally just what he could do with airbending. He can’t even wield any of the other elements, and he’s one of the most powerful people on the planet, because he’s an airbender.

And that got me thinking.

This snippet from Bitter Work is one of the few pieces of concrete information we get about the airbenders, at least in ATLA. Iroh is explaining to Zuko how all four of the elements connect to the world and to each other.

Fire is the element of power, of desire and will, of ambition and the ability to see it through. Power is crucial to the world; without it, there’s no drive, no momentum, no push. But fire can easily grow out of control and become dangerous; it can become unpredictable, unless it is nurtured and watched and structured.

Earth is the element of substance, persistence, and enduring. Earth is strong, consistent, and blunt. It can construct things with a sense of permanence; a house, a town, a walled city. But earth is also stubborn; it’s liable to get stuck, dig in, and stay put even when it’s best to move on.

Water is the element of change, of adaptation, of movement. Water is incredibly powerful both as a liquid and a solid; it will flow and redirect. But it also will change, even when you don’t want it to; ice will melt, liquid will evaporate. A life dedicated to change necessarily involves constant movement, never putting down roots, never letting yourself become too comfortable.

We see only a few flashbacks to Aang’s life in the temples, and we get a sense of who he was and what kind of upbringing he had.

This is a preteen with the power to fucking fly. He’s got no fear of falling, and a much reduced fear of death. There’s a reason why the sages avoid telling the new avatar their status until they turn sixteen; could you imagine a firebender, at twelve years old, learning that they were going to be the most powerful person in the whole world? Depending on that child, that could go so badly.

But the thing about Aang, and the thing about the Air Nomads, is that they were part of the world too. They contributed to the balance, and then they were all but wiped out by Sozin. What was lost, there? Was it freedom? Yes, but I think there’s something else too, and it’s just yet another piece of the utter brilliance of the worldbuilding of ATLA.

To recap: we have power to push us forward; we have stability to keep us strong; we have change to keep us moving.

And then we have this guy.

The air nomads brought fun to the world. They brought a very literal sense of lightheartedness.

Sozin saw this as a weakness. I think a lot of the world did, in ATLA. Why do the Air Nomads bother, right? They’re just up there in their temples, playing games, baking pies in order to throw them as a gag. As Iroh said above, they had pretty great senses of humour, and they didn’t take themselves too seriously.

But that’s a huge part of having a world of balance and peace.

It’s not just about power, or might, or the ability to adapt. You can have all of those, but you also need fun. You need the ability to be vulnerable, to have no ambitions beyond just having a good day. You need to be able to embrace silliness, to nurture play, to have that space where a very specific kind of emotional growth can occur. Fun makes a hard life a little easier. Fun makes your own mortality a little less frightening to grasp. Fun is the spaces in between, that can’t be measured by money or military might. Fun is what nurtures imagination, allows you to see a situation in a whole new light, to find new solutions to problems previously considered impossible.

Fun is what makes a stranger into a friend, rather than an enemy.

Fun helps you see past your differences.

Fun is what fuels curiosity and openmindedness.

Fun is the first thing to die in a war.

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auranxia

3 years ago

So you’ve got this bitch-ass fitted sheet that you would normally pile into a ball and shove into a closet so you won’t have to deal with it, yeah? Well. Quit acting like a piece of linen is better than you are. You can make a fitted sheet bend to your will. And here’s how…

First, put your sheet on the floor. Stand above it for a few seconds so it knows who’s boss.

Then, put your hand in the lower left corner so that it’s inside out. Do the same to the lower right corner.

Now, your lower left and right corners of the fitted sheet should be inside out. (Shoutout to Amy Poehler, love your work).

Then, take the lower left corner (that’s still inside out) and tuck it into the upper left corner. It should look like the picture above once you’re done. Then, do the same with your right corners.

It should look something like that. Right now, she’s your friend at the end of a good night out. Doesn’t look really bad, but you know she deserves better.

Pull at the corners until you get something like this shape, as it makes it easier to fold. You’ve given your friend some plain white bread and a glass of water. She’s looking much more presentable now.

Now, pull in at the elastic until you make a rectangle. You’ll want to tuck and smooth the excess fabric away from the elastic seams and towards the closed edge of the fitted sheet.

Once you’ve got a (semi) neat rectangle, fold the the top of the sheet down about a third of the way through. I like to fold the upper part of the sheet down first, because it’s not as straight of an edge as the bottom. You can find your own meaning within that description.

Now, fold the lower portion of the sheet on top of the part you’ve already folded down.

Fold the left side of the sheet into the middle, and then fold the right side of the sheet on top of what you just folded.

Congratulations. You just made a fitted sheet your bitch.

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funny how to fitted sheet how to fold a fitted sheet

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auranxia

5 years ago

the whole “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually kinda racist…

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history feminism black girls racism woc

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auranxia

3 years ago

PROTECT HER!!!!!!!!

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bleach bleach anime bleach manga

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auranxia

6 years ago

“Those poor boys”

“She deserves to be punished too.”

“I’m not saying I support rape, but-”

“Sorry to say - she deserved it.”

“She put herself in harm’s way”

“But if she was fingered, then that’s not rape.”

“She ruined their lives.”

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auranxia

3 years ago

Can we also get rid of the whole “person obsessed with technology is automatically on the spectrum” thing as well ?

fandom hcs are like:

-shy anxious person is ace

-badass but nice girl is bi

-mean bitch is a lesbian

-bubbly extrovert girl is pan

-all men are gay (unless they're flirty in which case they're bi)

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autism lgbt steven universe peridot stereotypes

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auranxia

7 years ago

BLACK EXCELLENCE

OMG FRANCE!! YOU GO FRANCE!!! 😀😀😊😊

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black men black excellence france nt fifa world cup 2018

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auranxia

3 years ago

x Just yesterday, Palestinian civilians in Jerusalem were celebrating Israa and Miraaj when they were attacked by the Israeli forces. 31 Palestinians were injured and 20 were arrested, most of which are under the age of 15. A special-needs 11 years old girl was shot in the face and had her jaw broken, a typical terrorist for the zionist regime.

x x

It is everyone's responsibility in times like this, when international support is given to Ukraine and rightfully so, to remember others who are identically oppressed yet completely cast into a "controversial conflict" light. If a Ukrainian bombs himself to defend his country New York Post calls him a hero, yet if any other person of colour in a third world country does this the international community doesn't even blink, claiming they don't know enough information to support anyone. For god's sake, when footballers raise the Ukranian flag in a match it's a heroic move but when others raise the palestinian flag they are fined for promoting terrorism. This is not a post to undermine the situation in Ukraine or to question the righteousness to resist invaders, on the contrary. It's a call for anyone reading this to be critical of how each injustice is represented and how right and wrong are manipulated by people in charge for their own good.